-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
What Do You Feel Is Wrong with Theism?
- Thread starter Magic Man
- Start date
Personally I think that other thread you are referring to is a disgrace. It is full of overgeneralizations, poor reasoning and simplistic two dimensional thinking.
I would hope that this thread does better. (the length of a thread is not an indication of how good it is.)
But I think it should be understood that the kind of things being said in that other thread by some theists is neither and indication of theists in general nor is it an indication of the nature of theism.
Theism is simply the belief that there is some kind of God. There is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with this belief. It is true that some people who hold this belief may have problems (being that they are people, they are bound to have problems) but this is not an indication that there is anything wrong with theism, nor should those individual problems be attributed to all theists.
I would hope that this thread does better. (the length of a thread is not an indication of how good it is.)
But I think it should be understood that the kind of things being said in that other thread by some theists is neither and indication of theists in general nor is it an indication of the nature of theism.
Theism is simply the belief that there is some kind of God. There is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with this belief. It is true that some people who hold this belief may have problems (being that they are people, they are bound to have problems) but this is not an indication that there is anything wrong with theism, nor should those individual problems be attributed to all theists.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
fantôme profane;1173209 said:
I agree. The funny part was that I was actually going to make a joke about getting this thing up to 80 or 90 pages, as someone once implied to me that because their thread was on page 89, they were better than others.
Anyway, I agree, there is nothing inherently wrong with theism, just as there is nothing inherently wrong with atheism. I'll be interested to see where this goes, though. I personally don't think either this question or the one about atheism is very conducive to a productive discussion. We'll see if that holds true again.
:cigar:
Smoke
Done here.
Hey, I said it seems unlikely to be true.
Okay, if you want brutal honesty, I think believing in god as an adult makes about as much sense as believing in Santa as an adult. The difference is that we have god pounded into us from an early age and -- unlike the case of Santa -- we're not expected to draw the obvious conclusion as we get older. Exactly the opposite, in fact.
In other words, the main reason we don't think theists are crazy is that there are so many of them.
Dunemeister
Well-Known Member
Its lack of specificity.
Rolling_Stone
Well-Known Member
Aha!! There's hope for you yet! Now, if you can only get from behind the shield of skepticism!
DallasApple
Depends Upon My Mood..
Does any one know where the love of God goes
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
they may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Gordan Lightfoot...
Love(only because I believe in God)
Dallas
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
they may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Gordan Lightfoot...
Love(only because I believe in God)
Dallas
Papersock
Lucid Dreamer
Aha!! There's hope for you yet! Now, if you can only get from behind the shield of skepticism!
What's wrong with skepticism?
robtex
Veteran Member
You can preference any statements you make with "applicable" as in religions this applies to. Obviously no statement will apply to all religions. But by qualifying as applicable you aren't singling out any particular faith causing a mini-argument and you pre-position the idea that the thought you present doesn't apply to every or all religions.
robtex
Veteran Member
Not pointed at any particular religion but a pattern I see amongst participant's in various religion is a very poor understanding of their particular faith. I spent about 2 years a while back, years back asking Christians about their religion and as a reflex from my college marketing class days would ask "knock out questions" intended to be used to assess the validity of their thoughts and opinions. Obviously one of those questions to Christians I talked to in chat online or in real life was "have you read the Bible" and "which version(s) of the Bible have you read". I found in about 100ish people I asked less than 10 had ever read the Bible and only maybe 1/4 even realized there was more than one version of the Bible. Furthermore I met a number of catholics that didn't know about the Catholic Canon, when I say didn't know I mean they didn't know such a thing existed.
If I asked about why they believe in God only one guy could answer that and he was a co-worker studying theology at the doctorate level. The last ordained pastor I asked could only say "It's in the Bible" as an answer. Most people said things like "The Bible" or "I don't know" or " I never really thought about it" I am editing this. One Mormon guy could answer the question and made an argument based on outlook on life.
I find in debate threads on here some of the theist cannot list reasons outside of their holy book for having a belief. And ironically there is a ton of reasons they could google on the net ranging from ID theory to Aquinas's 5 proofs to metaphysical arguments from Kant.
I think the term used in theist circles is "soul searching" in reference to introspection and I think a good percentage of theists never really though about why and come across as both intellectually vapid and lazy when it comes to their beliefs.
By contrast if you ask an atheist why he doesn't believe in God you usually can get a mouthful. It is rare for an atheist not to think the question through throughly by reading religious books, philosophy books arguments for and against and having the ability to list reasons. I think by comparison theists overall are much likely to think the question through with any dept or reason for their qualification. Rarely will any of them view other religions for assessment of validity or other intellectual measures to find validity in their belief.
The easiest way to illustrate this is by demographics of religion. It is no coincidence that where you live has a huge impact on your belief system of choice. If you are born in India you have an 80% chance of being a Hindu. In America roughly an 85 % chance of being a Christian, if in Iran a 90 % plus of being a ****e but if you are in Pakistan it is 90 % plus of being a Sunni. If the reason for sustaining belief in one religion was a product of introspection, reading and research we would not see demographics anywhere near those proportions.
If I asked about why they believe in God only one guy could answer that and he was a co-worker studying theology at the doctorate level. The last ordained pastor I asked could only say "It's in the Bible" as an answer. Most people said things like "The Bible" or "I don't know" or " I never really thought about it" I am editing this. One Mormon guy could answer the question and made an argument based on outlook on life.
I find in debate threads on here some of the theist cannot list reasons outside of their holy book for having a belief. And ironically there is a ton of reasons they could google on the net ranging from ID theory to Aquinas's 5 proofs to metaphysical arguments from Kant.
I think the term used in theist circles is "soul searching" in reference to introspection and I think a good percentage of theists never really though about why and come across as both intellectually vapid and lazy when it comes to their beliefs.
By contrast if you ask an atheist why he doesn't believe in God you usually can get a mouthful. It is rare for an atheist not to think the question through throughly by reading religious books, philosophy books arguments for and against and having the ability to list reasons. I think by comparison theists overall are much likely to think the question through with any dept or reason for their qualification. Rarely will any of them view other religions for assessment of validity or other intellectual measures to find validity in their belief.
The easiest way to illustrate this is by demographics of religion. It is no coincidence that where you live has a huge impact on your belief system of choice. If you are born in India you have an 80% chance of being a Hindu. In America roughly an 85 % chance of being a Christian, if in Iran a 90 % plus of being a ****e but if you are in Pakistan it is 90 % plus of being a Sunni. If the reason for sustaining belief in one religion was a product of introspection, reading and research we would not see demographics anywhere near those proportions.
Alceste
Vagabond
ROFL. Now that's just unfair...